Cocoa pods are pictured at a farm in Sinfra, Ivory Coast April 29, 2023.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

No rain fell last week in most of Ivory Coast’s main cocoa regions and farmers said on Monday (December 30, 2024) that the dry weather could damage bean quality and tighten supply from February.

The world’s top cocoa producer is in the dry season that runs from mid-November to March, when rainfall is low.

Farmers said there were enough pods on trees to be harvested in January, but from February the October-to-March main crop would start to tail off.

They said they will start monitoring the development of the April-to-September mid-crop from January.

Good rains are needed to trigger more flowering and to help them turn into small pods for a strong start of the mid-crop in April, farmers added.

In the west-central region of Daloa and in the central regions of Bongouanou and Yamoussoukro, which had no rainfall last week, farmers said they were concerned by the weather.

“We didn’t get a single drop of rain. It’s not good for the end of the main crop and the beginning of the mid-crop,” said Faustin Konan, who farms near Daloa, where no rain fell last week, which is 3 millimetres (mm) below the five-year average.

Farmers in those regions said the intensity of the dry Harmattan wind had fallen compared with the previous week.

The Harmattan wind, which usually sweeps in from the Sahara desert between December and March, can dry the soil and harm cocoa pods, making them smaller.

In the western region of Soubre, in the southern regions of Agboville and Divo and in the eastern region of Abengourou, where it didn’t rain last week, farmers said if plantations received a good rainfall every 10 days in January, it could improve the yield and the quality of beans from February.

“The weather is very hot, so we need well-distributed rainfall in January for trees to produce well,” said Kouassi Kouame, who farms near Soubre, where 0 mm fell last week, 5.7 mm above the five-year average.

Average temperatures across the West African country last week ranged from 26 to 28.2 degrees Celsius.

The deadly tsunami that swamped India’s southern coast two decades ago was a one-off disaster, but storms that are growing ever more intense spark panic each time howling gales whip up waves.

Maragathavel Lakshmi shudders when she hears lashing rains or winds, recalling how her daughter was swept away when the 2004 tsunami, triggered by a huge earthquake off Indonesia, crashed onshore almost without warning.

“Weather alerts have made life easier, but the fear of what a heavy rain or strong wind might bring is still there,” 45-year-old Lakshmi said.

More than 220,000 people were killed as the devastating waves hit shorelines around the Indian Ocean, including 16,389 in India, according to the international disaster database EM-DAT.

Fear of the weather is based on a very real threat — and the risks are increasing.

Dangerous cyclones, the equivalent of hurricanes in the North Atlantic or typhoons in the northwestern Pacific, are an annual menace.

Better forecasting and more effective evacuation planning have dramatically reduced death tolls, but scientists say human-driven climate change is intensifying their power.

“Summers are very harsh now and rains are heavier,” Lakshmi said, saying weather alerts sent her anxiety soaring.

A warmer atmosphere holds more water, meaning rains are heavier.

“Strong winds scare us,” said her husband Maragathavel, who like many in the region goes by only one name.

Also Read | Remembering the Indian Ocean Tsunami

“Every time it rains heavily, water (floods) our area,” the 49-year-old fisherman added. “It seems on those days that the sea has still not left us.”

‘Very afraid’

The December 26, 2004 disaster was not caused by climate change but by a 9.1 magnitude earthquake that struck off Indonesia’s Sumatra.

Hours later, Lakshmi heard a loud rumble and then saw enormous waves — rising as high as 40 metres (130 feet) — approaching her neighbourhood on the shore in Akkaraipettai, their village in Tamil Nadu state.

Lakshmi showed a photograph of her daughter Yashoda, who her father had been looking after for the day next door when the waves struck.

“She would have been 22 years old now,” Lakshmi said tearfully.

The 45-year-old remembers people getting swept away or holding on to whatever they could.

“Some people were naked or barely had any clothes left on them,” she said.

The tsunami also hit the chain of Andaman and Nicobar islands, where at least 4,000 people were killed. The victims included 109 Indian air force pilots, crew and around 40 of their relatives.

At least 870,000 people were left homeless in India.

Many, like Lakshmi, were moved to new settlements inland.

Their neighbour, fisherman P. Mohan, 46, said weather alerts still gave him shivers of fear.

“If I see some warning about the weather, I do not even step out of the house,” he said.

“Until the rains or cyclone — whatever is the warning — comes and goes away, I am very afraid.”

‘Cannot control nature’

Mohan had a rod put into his leg after being injured in the tsunami, which also killed his mother.

Neighbours had last seen her sitting beside the sea when the waves hit.

He could not identify her from the “swollen and disfigured” corpses laid out for identification in the days after the tsunami.

“Was she buried along with other people who could not be identified? Is her body still in the sea?” he asked. “I do not know.”

A few friends told him that they might have seen his mother’s body amid other unidentified corpses.

It took him a decade to fully accept her loss and hold symbolic final rites.

A seawall made of concrete and bricks of homes destroyed by the tsunami now divides land from water.

Villagers hold prayers each day at a temple to a Hindu deity believed to protect them from the sea.

But Mohan said he now simply accepted his fate.

“God cannot control nature,” he said. “What has to come, will come.”

A dangerous weather phenomenon called a bomb cyclone that occurs in mid-latitudes – between Earth’s tropics and the polar regions – can bring strong and damaging winds, torrential rains, heavy snowfall, flooding and frigid temperatures.

A La Nina would have significant consequences for global agriculture because it typically brings wetter weather to eastern Australia and southeast Asia and drier conditions to the Americas.
| Photo Credit: Ritu Raj Konwar/The Hindu

There are early signs that a La Nina weather event may form in the Pacific Ocean later this year, Australia’s weather bureau said on Tuesday.

A La Nina would have significant consequences for global agriculture because it typically brings wetter weather to eastern Australia and southeast Asia and drier conditions to the Americas.

The bureau said it had declared a “La Nina Watch”.

“When La Nina Watch criteria have been met in the past, a La Nina event has subsequently developed around 50% of the time,” it said.

Also Read | El Niño, La Niña and changing weather patterns 

La Nina events result from cooler sea surface temperatures in the Pacific. Warmer sea surface temperatures can cause an opposite weather phenomenon called El Nino, which occurred last year and lasted into early 2024.

“Sea surface temperatures in the central Pacific have been steadily cooling since December 2023,” the bureau said.

“The Bureau’s modelling suggests that ENSO will likely remain neutral until at least July 2024,” it said, using the formal name, the El Niño Southern Oscillation, that describes the switch between the two phases.

Japan’s weather bureau has said there is a 90% chance that the El Nino phenomenon will dissipate by the end of May.

Other forecasters have also heralded a La Nina later this year. Last week, Japan’s weather bureau said there was a 60% chance it would occur by November, and a U.S. government forecaster said there was a 69% chance that it would develop during July-September.